Ukrainian Prime Minister predicts about 9 mln households to apply for utility subsidies soon

Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has estimated that up to nine million Ukrainian households out of 15 million registered in the country will apply for housing and utilities subsidies in the near future, according to Ukrainian news service TSN.Tyzhden.

Groysman earlier said that households should not spend more than 15% of total family income on utilities bills.

As he told TSN.Tyzhden in an interview, the government encourages citizens to apply for subsidies, as it is more beneficial for the budget to provide targeted assistance to Ukrainian households than pay subsidies to utility services providers.

”How did the system previously work? People received subsidies, tariffs were too low, and they were used to earn enormous profits on transactions carried out at all levels; Naftogaz used to receive over UAH 100 billion in subsidies every year and this system generated losses. With this difference in prices and people allegedly paying a reduced price, it was in fact the corrupted price. They ascribed this to cheap gas sold to households, but later were reselling it [gas] at a commercial price, then they became billionaires. This scheme will not exist anymore,” the prime minister stressed.

He also reassured the Ukrainian citizens that the government would provide all the subsidies in due amounts.

Earlier, the Ukrainian government reported changes in handling subsidies. In particular, previously income of non-working pensioners for the previous year was taken into account when processing documents on subsidy provision, while income for the previous month is currently accounted.

At the same time, households that have hidden income, high salary or have carried out a purchase for the amount over UAH 50,000 would be denied subsidies. The prime minister also stated that the government was not planning to carry out monetization of subsidies since the government had not yet worked out a proper mechanism. It is expected that by the end of the next heating season in 2017 monetization may be used as an option when saved sums could be spent on energy saving measures.

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